Like the South River Rams two weeks ago, and the Colonia Patriots last week, the New Brunswick Zebras experienced playoff disappointment after a fine effort in summer league play. The Zebras, like the Rams, enjoyed a solid regular season in the Bound Brook Summer League, but while South River reached the Championship Game in the Middlesex County College Summer League, New Brunswick was knocked out in the Quarterfinal round of the playoffs by Hunterdon Central at Bound Brook. In all fairness to the Zebras, they only had six players there, and most importantly, didn’t have soon to be junior Jaquan Cook, who had sat out the Bernards game the Thursday before.
While New Brunswick is similar to South River, and different from Colonia in the fact that it has not experienced a great deal of success in recent years, they still all enjoyed a solid summer that gave their confidence a big boost going into the regular season. The Zebras finished 8-1 during the regular season to earn the second seed in the playoffs. More significant though was the increasing confidence of the players as the season wore on. There was a definite difference in the way the Zebras played in the next to final regular season game when they blew out Bernards versus their opening night contest against Bound Brook. The offense is still a work in progress, but the effort is definitely there on the defensive end. New Brunswick’s players all moved well with their feet on defense, and created a lot of chaos for opposing teams.
Couple that with the offensive play of both soon to be senior, Simuel Williams and Cook, and you have a perfect recipe for success. When Williams and Cook were on their games offensively, the Zebras were tough to beat. New Brunswick needs more scoring and contributions from the bench. In the loss to Hunterdon Central in the Quarterfinals, Williams accounted for 54 percent of the team’s offense. With Cook not in the lineup, the Zebras needed someone to pick up the slack besides Williams. If NBHS can get that during the regular season, then it may have a chance to greatly improve over the past several seasons. The White Division still expects to be both with Monroe, Cardinal McCarrick, and Colonia on top of teams such as Sayreville, Carteret, North Brunswick, and South Plainfield. If New Brunswick could be .500 this season, and qualify for the states, that would be significant improvement.
New Brunswick along with Perth Amboy is a basketball program with rich tradition and history in the Greater Middlesex Conference. Having them back on top again would go a long way to enhance the reputation the league, and create more excitement about basketball around Middlesex County.